Phenomenal review of an important book! I love that you referred to the book establishing itself as a flash point in your life ("the summer I read IJ"), because that's exactly what happened to me. It tends to stake itself in the ground. I wrestled with this book for almost a month, dutifully reading all the footnotes (and the footnotes' footnotes) and I came out transformed on the other side. Like your Gravity's Rainbow video, you've made me fancy another go at this one!
+Mark Perrie that's a good guess... but check out the other videos and you'll see that bandanas are just my thing :) Ya know, I don't think DFW would have been to big a proponent of skinny jeans either... haha! Thanks for the comment :)
Just happened upon this review of my favorite book ever. I agree with sooo much of what you said, the book is very polarizing but if you're one of the ones who get it then it's really powerful. And if you're in recovery even more so.
You nailed it, Ryan. Great review. You kept it short. A wise move. This is a book that could fill hours of review, which might confuse rather than illuminate. Thanks.
This is one of the novels I cannot get through like Gravity's Rainbow. I give any book up to page 44. Do not know why that is the page but that is it. I will try IJ again this summer.
I only read 1/4 of it. It had a lot of marvelously written pages, but also a lot of unnecesary spam. Its like a delicious food with a deliberately put horrible sauce.
When I read the passage that literally, to a scary degree of accuracy, predicts Netflix, I had to put the book down for a while after looking at the front page to see what year it was published.. It's not one of those "predictions" where it somewhat predicts something after some mental gymnastics and a little leeway, I mean it's so exact in it's description of it, it kind makes you feel a little eerie and think "How did this man perceive the world " Also the predictions of increasing quality of various and highly effective distractions. The increase in quality of television, nowadays you have Breaking Bad, The Wire, House of Cards etc... These are shows that once you are "into" them, you do things like "binge-watch" them. Something that funnily enough is similar in execution to drug binges. And speaking of increase in the quality of distractions, the current opiod/painkiller problem, whose major player is fentanyl. An opiod that is many, many times stronger than heroin. This increase in quality has been proportional to increase in use. As far as I've read, heroin/fentanyl/painkiller usage is much more common in high schools now than it was 10 years ago, it was very unheard of in my days of high school. It was there, just pretty rare. Love him or hate him, it's in my mind impossible to deny the man's intellect was huge.
Are you really young or something? Everybody predicted netflix when we started using the internet it was an obvious conclusion, it was more about who is going to do it first etc.
@@shaunjones7918 Ahhh the "I could've done that" guy. Well, why didn't you? And why didn't anyone else? I'd love to see your reaction in a Modern Art Gallery.
Way to describe the plot. Love your descriptions. It is revolving around IJ. And so are we :) I would say it is 3 plots: ETA, Halfway House, and Desert in Tucson, AZ. Shards is a great word. It is definitely the most explored novel. 2666, though, man... I think the footnotes add another voice. It's like a parenthetical, but a little more creative. But i love how you say it makes you a participant; thereby; fighting entertainment culture. Fucking up Freytag's Pyramid for sure. Jumps around in time. I love Hal's timeline, that we see him at the end, first, and then he leaves us with Hal starting to go crazy :( Gately's timeline was incredible, too. Love the backstory when he is shot and unconscious (kind of). SCREAM OUR TRUEST SELVES TO THE STARS AND SEEKING OTHER PEOPLE IN THIS VAST DARKNESS. Dude don't underplay that amazing sentiment. Beautiful. Itch a la White Noise To get over the itch you must accept the cliche and drop the irony!
Is this book fun to read? I'm asking because I know David Foster Wallace wrote alot of "essays" and I find them kinda entertaining, but not as entertaining that I would read a 1000+ page romance from him.
"its a tough decision" spot on why i'm here....want to get it, want to read it. but I'm not at all certain if I'll ever pick it up, or finish if I do, or even like it if I finish it.
just started reading this for the 5th attempt. as in ive tried 5 times to begin and have started over and over again because it just wasn't the time for me i guess. but this summer is time. I've gotten about 40 pages far, never gotten this far before. im so extremely intimidated but i know i need to read it.
I've started and stopped and reread at least a dozen times every summer since college and it always feels like I'm doing heavy essential work for sanity
You should. It seems to be both very similar to Infinite Jest, and unlike it at all. I loved House of Leaves. Thanks to your review, I'm going to read Jest.
After feeling this way as well I gave up on rereading section for understanding, I felt like you just had to keep reading and not question the confusion and eventually the book will address earlier confusions. not sure why, but some of it is definitely purposely confusing like the fact you don’t get an actual chronological subsidized timeline until like halfway through the book, or you don’t get a character background until the last 10 pages (Barry loach). I think maybe the reason the book is intentionally confusing is that it’s from so many perspectives that if he made it super clear cut to understand we would lose all the different perspectives. I think most of the book is also narrated by JAmes Incandenza
The "Wardeen" section at the beginning fucking broke me. I spent an hour rereading his broken AAVE trying to understand who these characters were and what was going on.
I just started it and have read about 30 pages I must say it is a god damn challenge to get through but it's just so fucking interesting I can't stop reading even though it somewhat hurts my head , a entire story of the addiction to marijuana was like a short story within the story that just blew my mind I couldn't believe it
this book is perfect for those who liked all the childish crap in hitchers guide to galaxy. not one reader i know gives a shit about DFW. with so many great books to read why would anyone waste their limited time with this solipsistic drivel? a mystery.
Totally agree. I just tried reading it again and it's so overrated. It's not terrible, no. He's a gifted writer. But the book itself is objectively overrated.
I’m like 300 pages in and it’s definitely a lot of work and I’m NOT a strong reader so it’s especially hard for me. But what keeps me going is that buried in the lengthy, confusing dialogue are these really simple lines that kind of hurt my heart and stop me in my tracks. Like when Katherine tells the doctor “I just didn’t want to play anymore is all.” It’s such a simple line but the simple bits keep grabbing my attention and I’m sort of falling in love with the book so far.
When you get to the end, remember this: It was meant to be grind of a read and mental illness. Also check out the author's commencement speech, uploaded on RU-vid as well.
Brilliant review, really :) one point I've been thinking about it since quite a while: as you said in the end, this book makes you plunge straight into it and becomes very, very addictive after a while. One thing I have always admired of it is that in many ways it mirrors the movie, Infinite Jest, in that you're compelled to read it (/watch it) over and over again, starting anew as soon as you've finished it. And I'm a sucker for that kind of meta stuff, but my question is: is this really a good thing? If Infinite Jest (movie) represents something terrible and dreadful, isn't the fact that the book mirrors it... kinda hypocritical? I'm not sure I'm making myself clear ;)
The_Bookchemist No I think you're about as clear as possible! I had that thought too, and got kind of disturbed by it... but I think there's a slight difference that makes all the difference, if that makes sense. The book requires our active participation to parse out a story, a plot, a meaning, and even our active flipping back and forth. The movie, it seems, definitely doesn't. Then there's the whole question of meta-ness: if the book references it's own addictive problem, does that make it potentially better than an addictive movie that doesn't mention it?? (Man it can be hard to talk about these things sometimes.) Anywho, thanks SO much for the encouragement and thoughts :)!
I see your point ;) you're welcome by the way, had I waited a few weeks to film my Booktube Reccommendations video I would've definitely put your channel in it! It will surely be in the next one ;)
The_Bookchemist haha Thank you! (It appears I'm simply blowing up your comments today.) I'm SO very excited to start making more review videos, I feel like I've got so much to put out there! Anywho, much love
It's why campy horror movies are better than serious ones- the campy ones call themselves out. The book's hypocrisy goes away because it acknowledges it forthrightly
I've read many reviews of this book and have spoken with dozens of people who have read it and no one, until now, has made me want to read it. You will be the reason I finally pick this one up. If I enjoy, thanks for that.
I'll have to give it another try some day. After 132 or so pages (same edition you show here) and another obnoxious YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT, I said to myself, Esto no es para mí, This ain't for me. So yeah, knowing that I've managed to read through other great classics that are considered difficult or virtually unreadable, I should be able to tackle this one some day.
Isn't it simpler to give the individual who taught you about existentialism credit rather than join a hoopla that takes away from your own enjoyment? Ask yourself, are masturbatory insights that important and did you actually believe an unreliable source is an example in society?
I finished this last night. I started in August and it's taken me until last night to get through it. But it was hugely rewarding. I felt like I grew up reading this book. Wallace predicted so much about our current reality, it's eerie and he does it with hilarious hyperbole. I think it's remarkable that he managed to literally create his own "Samizdat" via this book, IE if you tend to overintellectualize things, you will find this story captivating to the point that you won't be able to curb your obsession. The fact that the story's major resolution and best plot points are only alluded to and occur outside of the actual text (for the most part) really make this book's story brilliant. It's like the "shards" you mention give us the tools to imply a sort of true story that occurs in between the end of November in YDAU and November YOG. I have the howling fantods.
"I felt like I grew up reading this book." Ahhh, I love this comment, and I particularly love that line, because it matches my experience so exactly. Thanks for the wonderful comment and I'm happy you had such an important experience with the book
DFW's use of extensive endnotes that are integral to the narrative of the book, seems to me a deliberate way of interrupting the reader's immersion in the story, in order to keep them in the real world rather than getting lost in the world of the novel. It is the literary equivalent of Brechtian alienation, drawing attention to the artificiality of the work and forcing the viewer to take an analytical view, engaging with the story more on an intellectual level than an emotional one, and hopefully causing them to reflect on the ideas presented and how they relate to the real world.
This novel changed the way I approach books. In the middle of reading the first chapter I hurled the book across the room with all the force of my frustration! Some days later I tried again with the same result. Some weeks or months later I made a third attempt and broke the spine. Eventually I just flipped the book open to a random page and began reading. That did the trick and after reading most of the novel I then went back to the first chapter. I have now read Infinite Jest at least a dozen times. Sometimes I just follow one story line, sometimes I read random chapters that I have a particular affinity for, and on occasion I read it from beginning to end. And that's how I began to opening books to a random page to begin reading them. If the book engages me I will eventually go to the beginning, if not it ends in a did not finish.
@@Kelpy I don't remember reading that but The Crying of Lot 49 is top ten for me. One of the few books that has me laugh out loud. Infinite is another hilarious novel.
After the first hundred pages I can understand much of the book's charm. As someone who has enjoyed listening to hours of Wallace's interviews and speeches and read a fair amount of his non-fiction, one can certainly see some of the important themes which he discussed quite eloquently also swimming around within the pages of Infinite Jest, which makes it a unique work, indeed. That being said, I can't help but find myself slowly forming the notion that the writing itself, if not the ideas discussed and the willingness to discuss them, has been dramatically over-stated. Put simply, Infinite Jest appears sloppily written in ways both obvious and subtle. This may seem odd considering the unbelievable specificity and attention to certain details littered throughout. The use of prose style and word choice (how many times do we need to hear the word 'prandial' used by different characters? There are countless other examples) both operate more often than not to discourage the reader from continuing to read rather than effectively conveying meaning in a way which might reflect a respect for the reader's limited time and energy. Then we have the perspective slips; sometimes we're in First person, as in the opening section with Hal and the college administrators. Often the narration will shift to a close third person (later in chapter one) and then sometimes we're in an omniscient perspective, and then sometimes we'll float into a third-person omniscient (slightly different than the aforementioned, which makes it more confusing) the change in perspective occurring whenever it's convenient to the need of the moment. To my mind, this reflects a specific choice on the part of DFW, rather than an unintentional mistake, but that doesn't make it any less of a problem for the reader. Nor does the decision reflect a mastery in the craft; it just seems sloppy. Speaking of respect for the reader, the aesthetic appearance of the words on the page themselves is a problem. I can't fathom the level of entitlement to the reader's time and energy necessary to look at a 6000 word paragraph i had just written without immediately arriving at the conclusion that it could be improved by a little reduction. I'm visualizing what a 6000 word paragraph would look like on a screen and it baffles me. Im referring 'Erdedy's' section in the second chapter, 15 pages which are subdivided into 3 just paragraphs, each measuring in at approximately 6000 words. For those unfamiliar with the relative length in word count, that's three to four times the length of an average chapter found in just about any genre of fiction. And the section, while interesting, wasn't that interesting. A grown man addicted to marijuana afraid to admit his addiction, which forces him into an anti-social isolation and a near-total objectification of everyone else around him is certainly a compelling subject for fiction; however, I think it's safe to say this could have been conveyed with greater efficiency. Clearly DFW wasn't a believer in Einstein's notion that true mastery over a subject is reflected in one's ability to communicate the aforementioned in the simplest possible terms. Moving along to the Year of the Trial sized Dove Bar and the remarkably offensive manner in which he characterizes his only African American character in the novel thus far. This section reads as if it were written by someone who hasn't socialized with people of color or anyone outside of his own white bourgeois existance. And we see a similarly dehumanized characterization in other members of the under class included in the novel, such as the pot dealer, and those around him. I could go on, but I should probably get back to finishing the book.
he also predicts FaceTime! It's insane how well he was able to predict the advances of technology and consumer culture and how it can spiral out of control and impact us. I just finished this and it's definitely the most work I've put into a book and the most I've gotten out of one. great review.
+yrrobotfriend Thanks for the compliment, but also I'm soooooo happy that was your experience! I know it isn't for everyone but I think the people who are affected are affected drastically. Anywho, thanks :)
Not only did he predict face time, he predicted it's rise and downfall because as he put it, everyone would miss the little personal things you can do on a normal phone, like biting your nails etc... where as face time you always have to be alert. Smart guy.
you are so dead on about this book. A++ review. This book changed my life. more than halfway through my second read. READ IT AGAIN. AND AGAIN. i love you. Also have you read The Pale King yet?
+Donald Clark The friend who I read Infinite Jest with just started it again.. I've made myself promise that I'll read The Pale King before I restart IJ :) thanks SO MUCH for your comment, seriously. It's comments like this that keep me making book reviews on the channel.
Do yourself a favor and read it on an e-reader. It makes defining unknown words and flipping back and fourth through footnotes much easier. Also, you don’t have to carry a brick around.
Just finished Infinite Jest too. Something struck me so hard that I had to run to Reddit as soon as possible. Infinite Jest is totally the basis for Royal Tenenbaums. If you're curious www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/5fvtt5/finished_infinite_jest_and_its_totally_the_basis/
0:38 A Polarizing Read 1:32 A Big Book to slog through 2:00 DFW's Magnum Opus 2:20 Plot 3:09 Unions, Wheel Chair Assassins 3:40 Shards 4:29 Endnotes 5:29 Recursive Reading NETFLIX (Formulaic Plot Structure) 6:14 An Itch. Screaming Your Truest Self To The Stars. Distractions/Default Setting
really awesome review. one thing you didn't mention - was just how sheer funny it is. It's one of the funniest and most clever pieces of work ever - nothing has made me laugh out loud from reading something, the way infinite jest did
this book Infinite Jest is just a lot of Babel, someone just babbling into the microphone and somebody else, somebody else typing it up, though Perhaps it is interesting because it is quite evident that there is a method to the madness, to the Babel, I am going to try the hardcover Edition, I'm hoping it has larger type, I have a paperback printed in Great Britain, and I want to find out what ultimately happens to all the Cockroaches trapped under the mayonnaise jars on the floor of the bathroom.
I've read some of his essays and i was hoping he would shed some light on David Lynch but that's like asking for a miracle just like asking Lynch to do anything more than film his dreams w/o developing anything within them is a miracle. Man I'll give it a start and see if I'm up for it. If I'm not up for it NOW I'll concede that.
I don't read. I watched the movie The End of the Tour - which is an account of an interviewer from Rolling Stone spending a week with David Foster Wallace in 1996. I came here to say thank you for this video. Do you think there will ever be some sort of Film or TV Miniseries Adaptation of this book?
I just bought this book but have been staring at it aimlessly not sure if I was ready to take it down. I kept seeking out reviews to understand what it was about but none ever made too much sense to me. Finally I found yours and it actually gave a sypnosis I understood and an incentive to read it besides, "its amazing!" Thanks for the great review, did you watch the movie recently about David Foster Wallace?
+Independent Thought Thank you SO much for the comment -- it's comments like that that fuel me to keep making new videos and finding new ways to talk about books. Here's to hoping you tackle the Jest :) let me know with some comments if you do! And regarding the movie, I haven't been able to locate it anywhere near me. Problems of living in the middle of nowhere, I guess. Have you???
Yeah the movie was fantastic though I've heard some say they portrayed Wallace as a hero when in reality he was very flawed. Got a few more books to read before Jest but hope to tackle it all before the end of September
"methaphorical buzzing sound at the back of your conscience telling you that nothing is allright, you are not allright and the world is not allright and be should running around screaming our truest selves to the stars and seeking other people in this fast darkness"
isn't it?? :) Except that you have to actively participate (even flipping back and forth through the book) instead of just passively absorbing the movie
+ForTheLoveOfRyan Its like watching the movie with directors commentary basically lol. I'm actually writing a very long text myself that also has footnotes. The footnotes aren't as exciting as the ones in infinite Jest, but I hope I can write something on the whole that's at least entertaining and thought provoking and captivating like Infinite Jest very much is.
Not being funny...my opinion is in the middle. Dont love or hate it, its...ok. I get the points he was trying to make, I get what he was trying to do and say, and I think (think) I realized why he wrote the book the way he did...to simulate the crushing and never ending nature of depression, and the effort that life needs. Least that what's I think ha also he was right. The United state thing was basically playing off NAFTA but in his future we have a major environmental disaster, years being named by corporations, he nailed it. His America is a numb America. Its stake and formulaic. In an interview he said in a world like this people need a voice something different anything. That well turn to even fascism. This was years ago yet that's what's happening right now....
It's not only a movie, but it is a movie that Hal's dad Dr. Incandenza produces with more than one sequel. None of the Infinite Jest productions are ever released, nor do they have much meaning. All in all, it could be an ironic and somewhat cynical joke foreshadowing the entire book and the Incandenza's lives. I am still in the very beginning (page 60-something) but know about it because it was mentioned in a VERY long footnote as a part of Mr. Incandenza's unending but lackluster filmography, which I made sure to at least skim through. It contains some weird jokes.
Can't say I agree with you 100% on the theme (or even the mechanics), but a solid, brief review -- your take is as valid as anyone else's. I will say that I am not in either binary camp on IJ -- I neither love it, nor loathe it. As someone who has slogged his way through a lot of books I felt were "capital I important" works of literature, I put this in that group. It's amazing, and impressive, and ground-breaking, and of course important; but it's often a slog. Part of this is due to the footnotes (which DFW did on purpose in order to break our comfort in plowing mindlessly through the narrative); part of it is due to the endless run-on sentences which digress in ways previously thought unimaginable and can be difficult to follow. :D At times it is literally "laugh out loud" funny and enjoyable, but overall the tenor is incredibly sad and depressing (IMO). I would read it again, but I have to be prepared with a lot of time and be in the right frame of mind. Enjoyed hearing your take!
Nice review, Bro. IJ is my second favorite book, shortly trailing behind Catch 22. One thought about your end notes comment, though. I was watching an interview, and he said it was originally a couple hundred pages longer. I think the end notes may have helped in the trimming of the fat. I could be wrong, though, What the fuck is water anyway?
Hey man i live like five minutes south of IU! I love your channel its super cool to see a hoosier youtube and i saw the video of you moving to california thats my plan for the future.
+John Witczak I think (and by "I think" I mean "I've been told by a lot of people") that one of the best strategies is to just read 15 pages every day for a summer. Figure 3 months at 15 pages a day including some days you don't read any at all and it'll work :) I hope you do!
Ahh, great review, man. Thanks for this! So good to hear from another enthusiast. I find all of your points completely valid, but it's also interesting how we both focussed on different things, perhaps. (Not sure, tho, seeing as you had to cram everything into just ten minutes and so had to cut down on a lot of things.) But, for example, the theme of addiction stood out most prominently for me, and how it makes us lonely and destroys us. And that we can't escape our addictive nature and should therefore channel it into the most rewarding (?) and least destructive of addictions, which is the addiction for human connection. E.g. the communion at the halfway house profoundly impressed and transformed me. Some critic said you leave the book with the wish to be a better person... I can fully subscribe to that impression but would add that just by having that wish you already ARE a better person. What an amazing transformation to take away from a book! OK, I'm already starting to ramble, but if you'd like to discuss further, let me know. I'd love to do that. Oh, and what about the humour in the book, which you didn't mention? Didn't you just laugh your ass off at times? Gosh, the way he built up certain sections and then knocked my socks off with the funniest shit I ever encountered in a book, giving me laugh-out-loud fits (even when there was some really twisted stuff going on, e.g. a dog being dragged to death by a car). Are you on Goodreads or something similar, by the way?
+Castorp79 Thanks so much for checking out the video! By far the coolest thing about doing RU-vid has been finding people who get excited by this stuff like I do... it's been so eye-opening. And you're exactly right about the addiction narrative/lesson. It hit me hard, especially the real human relationships being built amongst addicts. Humor. Dangit. Here I was thinking I'd done a decent job within the limits of a short video of addressing the important things... and I totally whiffed on humor, because you're *exactly* correct: this book is HILARIOUS. I laughed aloud far too many times (I'm thinking specifically of a story about a brick layer and his misfortunes, but the dog being dragged part might top that). I guess that's the problem of trying to squeeze this big square book into the tiny circle hole that is a review video. Alas, Goodreads... this perhaps makes me a novice, but at least an honest novice.. I am not on Goodreads, and I don't really even understand how to use it. I've considered getting on there. In fact, I might make that a part of this channel soon, my start on Goodreads. What do you personally mainly use Goodreads for? What do you like about it? Again, thanks SO much.
+ForTheLoveOfRyan Well, I mainly just use goodreads for the reviews by other users. The main intention was to find like-minded readers to discuss stuff, but that proved kind of difficult. Now that I found a kindred spirit in you, I just thought it would be a good idea. Also, I get kinda self-conscious discussing stuff publicly like here... I guess you don't have that problem ;-) Still, would love to connect and be inspired/perhaps inspire you with new literary gems we find. Are you on Facebook, perhaps?
Four minutes in and you showed your true colors: you spoke of Tartt as if. I read Tartt's "The Secret History" and found so many errors I actually wrote her publishing company. And got a smarmy condescending response. I saw a review of people's fav Pulitzer prize winners recently, and Tartt's yellow bird book was the only one that had negative comments about it, and there were several. You are yet another reviewer who does not read the same way I read. I love "Consider The Lobster" by DFW, but after two hundred pages of Infinite Jest I had to put it down. DFW may have been a great writer and I am still trying to read his other works, but IJ is overrated. Years after I came to these convictions re IJ I heard Russell Brand say he tried IJ and couldn't do it either, and if you've ever listened to RB you have to admit he's fairly or extremely intelligent. Those on the far right might not agree with me about Brand, but they're only against Brand because of politics.
If you only read 200 pages, you cannot say it's over rated. Because you haven't taken it in whole. And, Russell brand, although kind of funny has nothing to say either if he didn't finish it, so you're both out of place.
+James Browning I'm not sure who/what RLM is, but the music is a stock, royalty-free track from iMovie that many people here on RU-vid use and no one has ownership of. Thanks for checking out the channel, though :)
this has been one of those books that I really want to read. Someday. maybe I need to put it a little higher on my to buy/borrow & read list :) (though I do prefer bigger books during fall/winter so it might have to wait jsut a couple of more months..)
0SheTalksToRainbows0 You should most DEFINITELY try it out this winter :) it's a huge reward, honestly. What other long books do you like? I'm always looking for recommendations :)
ForTheLoveOfRyan haven't read that many as they used to scare the ** out of me :P but the goldfinch is one of my favourites as well as american gods by neil gaiman.
And alluded to as Trump parody in his attacks on "24"''s President Palmer, Gentle demanding to see Palmer's birth certificate, accusing him of being a "melanistic Treen" from Venus, an allusion to 2000 AD/Dan Dare alien race, Mekon. Later threatening annexation of Canada for Terrance and Phillip's television lampoons on Gentle.
